One day at work

*ring ring*
Hello
Hello, I am calling from *****, can you advice me what BMW series is latest in the market and I should buy?
Huh?
I mean would be worth spending all that money? Are parts readily available, what about maintenance and car specifications and all.
Oh, I see. Sir, how many wives do you have?
Excuse me?
Well, you see, BMW has a new notice out after Swaziland's King Mswati III invested in 10 new 5 series for his wives. BMW now stands for Beamers for Multiple Wives. So, the new policy dictates that only men who have more than two wives can now buy a BMW.
What? Is it BMW’s Karachi office?
*grin* Errr, no.
*click*

“Neoliberal democracy, with its notion of the market uber alles…instead of citizens, it produces consumers. Instead of communities, it produces shopping malls. The net result is an atomized society of disengaged individuals who feel demoralized and socially powerless.”

~ Robert W. McChesney, Introduction for Naom Chomsky’s Profit Over People

Imports to Latin America are heavily skewed towards consumption for the rich…the wealthy are generally exempt from social obligations, including taxes…The problem of Latin America is not ‘populism’…but ‘subjection of the state to the rich.’

My reading list these days:
From Beirut to Jerusalem, Dr. Ang Swee Chai
Che Guevera, Eric Luther with Ted Henken
Profit Over People, Naom Chomsky
The Economist’s Pocket World in Figures 2005

Everyday I face a barrage of gigantic billboards, trying to get my investment in world class residential projects, flashy cars, jazzed up home entertainment systems, latest communicating gizmos; trying to entice me into walking into their swanky outlets with promises of amazing sales and discounts, and mouth watering food.
Lowering my gaze, more to the ground, I see a huge mass of people sweating in the blazing sun, waiting for their route buses, little children running about barefoot on infernal tarmac.
A petrol station sports a spiffy billboard on how 88% of its customers found that their particular brand of petrol gives more mileage. And right across the road I see a teeming mass of ailing humanity stirring up on their tattered chadars on the pavement that served as their beds for the night. Entire families marking out their spaces. Some have not bothered with even a chadar.
This is Pakistan, with a growth rate of 8% that allows Pakistan and its people to raise their standard of living and improve the quality of life, something already beginning to happen.

With this growth rate, the per capita income will rise and people will spend more and that will create more momentum in the economy, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz noted. "This buoyancy in economy is sustainable and will provide a base for even higher growth in the years to come."

I reach my workplace, switch on the aircon, answer a phone call that, grins aside, gets me thinking, run a google search on some words for old news items I remember having read , to see if all these months have been enough for the good effects to have permeated downwards in the society, and type out this blog. About time I paid lip service. Best that I can do.

On another note, Altaf Hussain turned 52 today. I just hope he starts acting like a sensible 7 year old, his real mental age.